Armed Conflict?

Putin confidante threatens Ukraine with invasion - "We have to take Kiev"

Created: 12/28/2021, 06:42 AM

By: Astrid Theil, Patrick Mayer, Josef Forster

Russia's governor in Chechnya: Ramzan Kadyrov.

© IMAGO / ITAR-TASS

Russia is gathering large troops on the border with Ukraine.

Moscow warns NATO.

A confidante of Vladimir Putin goes even further.

The news ticker.

• Ukraine conflict

  : The OSCE * reported a breach of the ceasefire between the Ukrainian army and separatists in the east of the country

  (see initial report).

• A friend of Putin from Chechnya is threatening Kiev with an invasion (

  update from December 27, 9:05 p.m.

  ).

• Russia warns NATO * of an armed conflict (

  update from December 27, 7.30 p.m.

  ).

• This

  news ticker on the Ukraine crisis

  is continuously updated.

Update from December 27th, 9:05 p.m.:

Is there a threat of an armed conflict on the border between Ukraine and Russia?

Even more: is an invasion of Russian troops imminent?

A confidante of President Vladimir Putin has now openly threatened Ukraine with an invasion.

We are talking about Ramzan Kadyrov, the governor of the Russian republic of Chechnya.

As the

reports on reference to the Chechen state television, Kadyrov held a press conference on "pressing issues" for three hours.

It was also about Ukraine.

“The Ukraine problem is not even on the level of the President 

 She is on my level.

If I got the order, I would have already decided, ”Kadyrov is quoted as saying.

The 45-year-old said: “Either I would have annexed Ukraine for the Chechen Republic or I would have conquered it a long time ago.

As I said after the Crimea: we have to take Kiev. "

Ukraine is "our people and our territory," said the so-called

Head of the Chechen Republic according to the

.

That is why an invasion by Russia is justified and only a matter of time, he is also quoted as saying.

How dangerous are the threatening gestures?

According to the

, the government in Moscow withdrew more than 10,000 soldiers from occupied Crimea and from the border regions of Kuban and Rostov to their bases at the weekend.

At the same time, the Russian Black Sea Fleet reported extensive maneuvers around Christmas.

Ukraine crisis: Russia warns NATO of an armed conflict

Update from December 27th, 7.30 p.m.:

In view of the tensions between Russia and the transatlantic alliance NATO, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow has warned Western military attachés of the risk of armed conflict. "Recently, the alliance has switched to a practice of direct provocation, which poses a high risk of escalating into an armed confrontation," Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told diplomats in Moscow on Monday.

The ministry distributed a video showing Fomin informing foreign uniformed officers about Russia's criticism of NATO.

Accordingly, among the 105 attendees were representatives from 14 NATO countries.

Fomin accused NATO of a massive increase in military activities.

In 2020 alone, the number of military flights on Russia's borders rose from 436 to 710.

Every year NATO also holds 30 major maneuvers with battle scenarios against Russia.

Update from December 27th, 5:10 p.m.: It is

still unclear whether the relaxation on the Russian-Ukrainian border will continue.

The former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt recently made a rather pessimistic forecast: he saw Russia and Vladimir Putin on a “dangerous path” - and warned Putin of a mistake of historic proportions *.

NATO makes Putin a “remarkable” offer - Gazprom is responding to harsh accusations

Update from December 27th, 10.15 a.m.:

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has officially convened a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council for January 12th.

Stoltenberg is in contact with the government in Moscow about the appointment, said a NATO representative in Brussels on Sunday.

The head of NATO had already tried unsuccessfully in the past few months to revive the NATO-Russia Council, founded in 2002, as a discussion forum.

This has been on hold since 2019 because of the Ukraine conflict.

According to information from the Russian daily

, Moscow is not rejecting the planned meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.

On Monday (December 27), the newspaper said that "judging by the reactions of Russian civil servants, the Kremlin has not rejected the proposal, but has not yet accepted it".

The newspaper described it as “remarkable” to hold a conversation within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council.

The reason: Russia had previously admitted that this format was "exhausted".

Allegations against Moscow: throttling of gas deliveries to the EU

Update from December 26th, 9:10 am:

The developments surrounding the Ukraine crisis also allow experts to look at the economic relations between East and West. Gas deliveries to the EU could play an increasingly important role in the further course of the conflict. The Polish government accused Moscow of having stopped its gas deliveries to Europe via the Yamal pipeline and of manipulating the Russian company Gazprom. Most recently, Poland received gas supplies from Germany.

The Russian energy giant "Gazprom" has now rejected the allegations. There were no restrictions on gas supplies to the EU: "All allegations against Russia and Gazprom, according to which we would not deliver enough gas to the European market, are absolutely unfounded, unacceptable and untrue," said a company spokesman on state television late on Saturday evening. On Friday (December 24), Russian President Vladimir Putin denied political instrumentalisation of the pipeline and accused Poland of "bypassing" Russia when operating the pipeline.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kiprijanow also accused Germany of driving energy prices up further by supplying Poland.

Western states have been accusing Russia for weeks of cutting back gas supplies to Europe in order to exert pressure in this way.

Experts suspect that Moscow is trying to use this approach to force the commissioning of the increasingly controversial Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2.

According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, the gas supply is currently "guaranteed".

If NATO rejects the demands: Putin leaves reaction open

Update from December 26, 11:16 a.m

.: Russian President Vladimir Putin leaves open how he will react to his proposals for binding security guarantees if the West rejects it. The answer depends "on the proposals that our military experts will make to me," Putin said on state television on Sunday. You could be different. Russia will endeavor to achieve a legally binding result in these negotiations.

Russia had handed over a draft agreement to NATO, the US and its allies more than a week ago.

Moscow calls for an end to NATO's eastward expansion, which it sees itself threatened by.

In addition, Russia wants to ensure that NATO does not accept Ukraine as a member.

The Western military alliance has always rejected this demand.

Putin turns the Ukraine around - Scholz advisor should now negotiate

Update from December 25, 6:55 p.m.:

Germany and Russia have agreed a meeting of high-ranking government representatives on the Ukraine crisis for the beginning of January. The foreign policy advisor to Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Jens Plötner, and the Russian commissioner for Ukraine, Dmitri Kosak, want to come together for detailed discussions on the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, according to government circles in Berlin. Both had a long phone call on Thursday.

On Thursday, Scholz also spoke to Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin on the phone.

In the conversation, according to government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, he emphasized the urgent “need for de-escalation” and called for the negotiations to be advanced in the Normandy format.

In the four-way format, Germany and France are working together to find a solution between Russia and Ukraine.

Update from December 25th, 3 p.m.:

For the first time in two and a half years, the NATO-Russia Council could meet again in January.

A NATO official confirmed in Brussels on Saturday that Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg * had decided to call a meeting of the format on January 12th.

We are in contact with Russia in this regard.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed receipt of the proposal, but also said it was still being examined.

Format and timing have yet to be clarified.

"But we are open to a dialogue," said spokeswoman Maria Sakharova of the Tass agency.

The NATO official referred to a NATO statement on the tense situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border on December 16.

It states, among other things, that any dialogue with Russia must take place on the basis of reciprocity and deal with NATO's concerns about Russia's actions.

OSCE reports: Armistice broken in eastern Ukraine

First report from December 25th, 2 p.m .:

Munich / Kiev - The ceasefire agreement was breached in eastern Ukraine.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observed more than 200 violations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the night of December 25th.

The Ukrainian army and separatists * had previously agreed to adhere to the ceasefire that was agreed a year and a half ago.

The Ukrainian army announced on Saturday morning that the opposing side had violated the agreement five times the day before.

A soldier was injured.

This information could not be verified independently at first.

Shortly before Christmas, Germany and France as mediators called for the ceasefire to be "fully observed".

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has been going on since 2014. According to United Nations estimates, more than 13,000 people have died there so far.

Reports of alleged Russian preparations for an invasion of Ukraine have been causing international concern for weeks.

Russia had rejected that.

The Kremlin, headed by President Vladimir Putin *, has also denied support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Eastern Ukraine: International community concerned about Russian force relocations

Recently, NATO expressed concern about Russian troop relocations on the border with Ukraine *.

There were fears that the Russian army might invade the neighboring country.

Moscow denied any plans to attack and declared the maneuver over.

More than 10,000 soldiers have returned to their bases, said the Ministry of Defense in Moscow on Saturday.

According to this, "combat exercises" had taken place at various military locations in the Russian regions of Volgograd, Rostov and Krasnodar as well as on the annexed Crimean peninsula *, which are in the immediate vicinity of Ukraine.

Russia: Military declares maneuvers over

According to the ministry, maneuvers also took place in areas further from the Ukrainian border.

The Russian regions of Stavropol, Astrakhan and the North Caucasus were also mentioned, but also Armenia and the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The military did not provide any information as to which bases the soldiers had returned to.

In order to ensure a high level of alert during the holidays “on the military bases of the Southern Military District”, the bases were assigned additional units “in order to be prepared for possible emergency situations,” added the ministry.

*